DOLE LITE?

President Clinton,seeking middle ground on a charged presidential campaign issue,backed ratings systems and a "technological fix" to let parents -- rather than Hollywood -- keep broadcast sex and violence away from the eyes and ears of children. "Most of us believe there'stoo much indiscriminate violence, too much indiscriminate sex,too much callous degradation of women and sometimes of other people in various parts of our media today," the President told a family-values conference in Nashville. Clinton's solution: the "V-chip," an electronic circuit that would allow parents to block violent or otherwise objectionable material with remote controls. A Senate-passed measure would require the technology in new TV sets and force the cable and broadcast television industries to encode a rating in violent or sexually explicit programs that could be read by such scanners. "This is not censorship," Clinton said. "This is parental responsibility." The broadcast and manufacturing industries oppose the plan.